Archaea in PAO

Periodical Abstracts Online has the great advantage of being readily accessible via ANNIE. Its limitations are (1) only about 1500 magazines [most of them 'popular', not 'scholarly'] are indexed; (2) W&L does not have some of what is indexed; (3) the subject information is miserably inadequate. Still, it's a good place to start exploration of periodical literatures, and it does tell you whether W&L has holdings of the periodicals.

Here's what we get if we ask PAO for archaea: 

 You searched for the WORD: archaea                       PERIODICAL ABSTRACTS
 28 entries found, entries 1-8 are:                  APPEARS IN          DATE
     1  Conserved sequence elements involved  Journal of Bacteriology   Aug 96
     2  L-alanine production from glucose fer Applied & Environmental M Jul 96
     3  Differential antibiotic sensitivity d Journal of Bacteriology   Jun 96
     4  Cloning of thermostable DNA polymeras Proceedings of the Nation May 96
     5  Characterization of 2-ketoisovalerate Journal of Bacteriology   Feb 96
     6  dTMP biosynthesis in Archaea          Journal of Bacteriology   Feb 96
     7  Isolation and characterization of fla Journal of Bacteriology   Feb 96
     8  Picrophilus gen. nov., fam. nov. : A  Journal of Bacteriology   Dec 95
     9  In vitro H2 utilization by a ruminal  Applied & Environmental M Sep 95
    10  The adenylate kinases from a mesophil Journal of Bacteriology   Jun 95
    11  Transcription in Archaea : Similarity Proceedings of the Nation Jun 95
    12  Archaea in Antarctica                 Bioscience                Feb 95
    13  Triumph of the archaea                Discover                  Feb 95
    14  Archaea, Archaea, everywhere          Nature                    Oct 94
    15  High abundance of Archaea in Antarcti Nature                    Oct 94
    16  Identifying members of the domain Arc Applied & Environmental M Sep 94
    17  Growth requirements of hyperthermophi Applied & Environmental M Aug 94
    18  Archaea and eukaryotes grow closer    Science                   May 94
    19  Transcription factor IID in the Archa Proceedings of the Nation May 94
    20  Fibrillarin-like proteins occur in th Journal of Bacteriology   Apr 94
    21  Color sensing in the Archaea : A euka Journal of Bacteriology   Dec 93
    22  Hyperthermophilic archaea are thrivin Nature                    Oct 93
    23  Characterization of a membrane-associ Journal of Bacteriology   Sep 93
    24  Characterization of amylolytic enzyme Applied & Environmental M Aug 93
    25  Heterogeneity of small plasmids from  Journal of Bacteriology   Feb 93
    26  Comparative physiological studies on  Applied & Environmental M Nov 92
    27  Component H of the DNA-Dependent RNA  Proceedings of the Nation Jan 92
    28  Intervening Sequences in an Archaea D Proceedings of the Nation Jan 92
Obviously some of these are 'primary' literature, our ultimate quarry, but others are more general and [presumably] more accessible to the non-specialist reader.

If we do another search for 'archaebacteria' (since we know we're interested in them too) here's what we get: 

 You searched for the WORD: archaebacteria                PERIODICAL 
ABSTRACTS
 35 entries found, entries 1-8 are:                  APPEARS IN          DATE
     1  An archaebacterial homologue of the e Proceedings of the Nation Jun 96
     2  Isolation of an ftsZ homolog from the Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 96
     3  Molecular cloning, nucleotide sequenc Journal of Bacteriology   Oct 95
     4  Structural features that stabilize ha Science                   Mar 95
     5  Ketohexokinase (ATP:D-Fructose 1-Phos Journal of Bacteriology   Sep 94
     6  The TATA-binding protein : A general  Science                   May 94
     7  Comparison of plasmid DNA topology am Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 94
     8  Purification and characterization of  Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 94
     9  Autogenous translational regulation o Journal of Bacteriology   Jan 94
    10  Strain identification and 5S rRNA gen Journal of Bacteriology   Jan 94
    11  Archaebacteria R&D may improve enzyme R&D                       Nov 93
    12  Structures of the modified folates in Journal of Bacteriology   Jun 93
    13  A physical map of the sulfur-dependen Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 93
    14  Characterization of paralogous and or Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 93
    15  Structure, function, and evolution of Journal of Bacteriology   Mar 93
    16  Structure of a molecular chaperone fr Nature                    Jan 93
    17  Tryptophan biosynthesis genes trpEGC  Journal of Bacteriology   Jan 93
    18  Primary structure of an archaebacteri Proceedings of the Nation Dec 92
    19  Chromosomal structure of the halophil Journal of Bacteriology   Nov 92
    20  Evidence that a plasmid from a hypert Journal of Bacteriology   Oct 92
    21  Cloning of the HSP70 gene from Haloba Journal of Bacteriology   Jul 92
    22  Haloalkaliphilic Maltotriose-Forming  Journal of Bacteriology   Jun 92
    23  Archaebacterial Activity in the Orca  Deep-Sea Research         Mar 92
    24  Novel Major Archaebacterial Group fro Nature                    Mar 92
    25  Hydrogen-Oxidizing Electron Transport Journal of Bacteriology   Jan 92
    26  Transcriptionally Active Regions in t Journal of Bacteriology   Jan 92
    27  A Molecular Chaperone from a Thermoph Nature                    Dec 91
    28  Hyperthermophilic Archaebacteria with Nature                    May 90
    29  Archaebacterial or Eocyte Tree?       Nature                    Feb 90
    30  A Novel Group of Abyssal Methanogenic Nature                    Dec 89
    31  The Mechanism of DNA Transfer in the  Science                   Sep 89
    32  Archaebacteria and Archezoa           Nature                    May 89
    33  Phylogenetic Analysis Based on rRNA S Nature                    May 89
    34  A Possible Biochemical Missing Link a Nature                    May 87
    35  Isolation of Extremely Thermophilic S Science                   May 87
But the key articles that would get us up to speed on the very latest happen to be hidden from these two searches above. It turns out that the search archaeon would retrieve one of them: 
 AUTHOR       Bult, Carol J.
 TITLE        Complete genome sequence of the methanogenic archaeon,
                methanococcus jannaschii.

 APPEARS IN   Science 1996, v273n5278, Aug 23, p. 1058-1073.

 SUMMARY      The complete 1.66-megabase pair genome sequence of an autotrophic
                archaeon, Methanococcus jannaschii, and its 58- and 16-kilobase
                pair extrachromosomal elements have been determined by whole-
                genome random sequencing.  A total of 1,738 predicted protein-
               coding genes were identified.

 SUBJECT      Genetics.

 ALT AUTH     White, Owen.
              Olsen, Gary J.
This search doesn't get this summary 'Research News' article from the same issue of Science, which provides all that the lay reader would wish for by way of introduction to why one would want to know about Archaea: 
 AUTHOR       Morell, Virginia.
 TITLE        Life's last domain.

 APPEARS IN   Science 1996, v273n5278, Aug 23, p. 1043-1045.

 SUMMARY      The genome of the archaeon microbe Methanococcus jannaschii has
                been sequenced, and researchers now have genomes for life's
                three domains.  However, only 44% of the archaeon's genes are
                familiar.
Thus we see another limitation of PAO: it indexes words in titles but not in summaries. So we see that we can't expect this (or any other) periodical index to do everything for us. If we'd somehow thought to search for 'archaeon', or been willing to wade through the 7700+ items retrieved by a search for 'archae*' we might have been led to Bult et al. 1996.